University of Ill. virtual campus flounders

[Brian Crawford]

It looks like George Gollin (George Dana Gollin, George D. Gollin) may have even more of a motive for cyberstalking DE schools.

http://apnews.excite.com:80/article/2008...LBL00.html

University of Ill. virtual campus flounders


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Sep 25, 5:07 AM (ET)

By DAVID MERCER

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. (AP) - An $8.9 million online campus launched by the University of Illinois nine months ago has had disappointing enrollment and fewer course offerings than expected, but the man who created it isn't giving up.

Instead, University of Illinois President Joseph White said he wants to turn the school's Global Campus into an independent, accredited university to speed up development of degree programs.

So far 121 students have enrolled in just five degree programs - far short of the 9,000 students White projected would enroll by the end of the Global Campus' first five years.

When it started offering classes in January, White hoped his professors would quickly create online programs in business, engineering and other high-demand fields.


For the most part, "That has not happened," White told The Associated Press in an interview Wednesday. "I'm not mad at anybody about that. I think we've come to realize that we have a university faculty that is at capacity."

White said the Global Campus is hamstrung by its status in the university system - it lacks the autonomy of the campuses in Urbana-Champaign, Chicago and Springfield - and by the fact that its degree programs have to be created by departments on those campuses.

Nicholas Burbules, a professor in the Department of Educational Policy Studies at the Urbana-Champaign campus and chairman of the Faculty Senate there, said some departments White counted on to create degree programs may have decided - for whatever reason - that they'd rather not.

"I think everyone understands the current model isn't generating the kind and number and diversity of programs that any of us envisioned," said Burbules. "I think frankly there were a lot of questions about implementation details."

So, White plans to ask the university's board of trustees in November to let the Global Campus seek its own accreditation, giving it the same standing and independence as the university's three brick-and-mortar campuses.

White envisioned the Global Campus as a revenue generator. He estimated a fully developed virtual campus would pump $10 million a year into the university system by providing affordable access to higher education for people who can't easily take classes at a U of I campus.

White said the Global Campus could gain accreditation, create new degree programs and draw on interested faculty from the three existing campuses, all without initially spending more than the $8.9 million budgeted for the venture this year.

Online learning is not particularly new, and other institutions have had more success with it. The University of Massachusetts, for example, said in April its online program had 33,900 enrollments and revenue of $37 million last fiscal year. Nearly 3.5 million students nationwide took at least one online course during the fall 2006 term, according to a report last year by the Sloan Consortium.

Trustees David Dorris and Robert Vickery say they haven't seen the details of White's proposal, but support at least the idea of restructuring the Global Campus.

"We have not had the success thus far that we had anticipated, so I think it's appropriate," said Dorris.

If trustees sign off his idea, White says the Global Campus could win accreditation from the Chicago-based Higher Learning Commission in two to three years. That's shorter than the usual time required, he said, but he expects the status of the university's three campuses would help speed the process.

White hopes to launch at least one degree-completion program within a year, and he added he won't allow the Global Campus to lower the university system's existing standards to increase Global Campus enrollment and offerings.

"Access to mediocrity is no bargain," he said. "Our goal is that all the University of Illinois' programs be of the highest quality."

[Fort Bragg]

Thank goodness it was only $9 million. Other cases have been much worse. They got off cheaply. I don't know the specifics but I assume the jackasses in charge had no distance learning experience. I assume that things were stated in lofty terms with high ideals and nobody wanted to put their asses in drive and do the work.

Developing an existing course to present on the internet should take all of a long weekend. Distance programs don't sell themselves. Marketing is a big cost. Brick and mortar schools don't face direct competition so breaking into the distance field means you have to offer something they can't find 100 other places.

I'm sure the jackasses thought it was all gravy. They entered the market as the 500th player. They have to impress people on service or price. I didn't know they existed.

I'm always amazed how some individual can start up a school from nothing and end up with accreditation and 10,000 students within 10 years. The problem is simply being blinded by their owned perceived greatness. Applying the brick and mortar model with the lazy ass professors and bloated administration doesn't fly.

What about the United States open University. Those assholes lost $20 million.

http://chronicle.com/free/2002/02/2002020501u.htm

Here's a listing of about $1 billion worth of losers. Too bad the arseholes in charge of the U of Illinois program didn't know how to google.

http://nettskolen.nki.no/in_english/mega...kage6.html

Then there was UK e–University which blew $100 million, spending a big chunk of that on developing computer programs when there are many existing platforms. Some schools use Moodle which is absolutely free and seems to work well.

http://moodle.org/

[ham]

Thank goodness it was only $9 million.  Other cases have been much worse.    They got off cheaply.  I don't know the specifics but I assume the jackasses in charge had no distance learning experience.  I assume that things were stated in lofty terms with high ideals and nobody wanted to put their asses in drive and do the work.

Developing an existing course to present on the internet should take all of a long weekend.  Distance programs don't sell themselves.  Marketing is a big cost.  Brick and mortar schools don't face direct competition so breaking into the distance field means you have to offer something they can't find 100 other places.

I'm sure the jackasses thought it was all gravy.  They entered the market as the 500th player.  They have to impress people on service or price.  I didn't know they existed.

I'm always amazed how some individual can start up a school from nothing and end up with accreditation and 10,000 students within 10 years.  The problem is simply being blinded by their owned perceived greatness.  Applying the brick and mortar model with the lazy ass professors and bloated administration doesn't fly.

What about the United States open University.  Those assholes lost $20 million.

http://chronicle.com/free/2002/02/2002020501u.htm

Here's a listing of about $1 billion worth of losers.  Too bad the arseholes in charge of the U of Illinois program didn't know how to google.

http://nettskolen.nki.no/in_english/mega...kage6.html

Then there was UK e–University which blew $100 million, spending a big chunk of that on developing computer programs when there are many existing platforms.  Some schools use Moodle which is absolutely free and seems to work well.

http://moodle.org/

I read that executives of the UK e-flop still received princely wages, and i am sure the developers of yet the next 'wonder' online environment (in spite of many being there & now ) have been oh-so-grateful for the contracts (what about 10% tax free routed to some foreign bank account? ).
This shows that our AAA+ 'doctors' and professionals in the retinue of big brother and its breath-taking projects to make our world the best of all are clueless whichever way you approach them...
Caballo, one of the minds behind the gigantic crack of once prosperous Argentina, used to be taken on tour to show everybody the blueprint for democratic elites.
How many hundreds of billions did they waste lately? To compare, landing a probe on Titan was the biggest space enterprise of all times and cost barely 1 billion...
During the French revolution these experts typically lectured from a scaffold...before the hangman stepped in.
Today the unwashed are kept amused with MTV reality shows, 'war on terror' and the next case of 'discrimination' or 'racism'...

[Dennis Ruhl]

If someone wants to spend the kind of money these schools lost, why not hire someone like Tom Neal or Donald Hecht for a couple years at a couple million per year to set it up. Nothing succeeds like success.

Columbia Southern U helped a couple Alabama universities get into the distance business. Why not hire the pros?

[Little Arminius]

Too bad the G-man didn't think that the online Global Campus was worthy of his considerable talents. You would think that with his backgound as a physics professor and researcher, along with his DL expertise, Gollin would have developed an intro or intermediate physics course. If you thought that you would be sadly mistaken.

Either Gollin thinks the online Global Campus isn't worthy of his support or he just couldn't be bothered. This is the same clown who said that he's such a big fan of community colleges (which no one believed) and sees himself at the forefront of the anti-mill movement in DL (which we know is total b.s.). Why wouldn't Gollin take the opportunity to pad his DL resume? He could have pawned it off on one of his grad students and claimed the credit anyway. He has some experience with that ...

[Dennis Ruhl]

Gollin was a Johnnie-come-lately to the fight against degreemills.  The rest of us aren't such shameless self promoters.

[Brian Crawford]

Thank goodness it was only $9 million.  Other cases have been much worse.    They got off cheaply.  I don't know the specifics but I assume the jackasses in charge had no distance learning experience.  I assume that things were stated in lofty terms with high ideals and nobody wanted to put their asses in drive and do the work.

Developing an existing course to present on the internet should take all of a long weekend.  Distance programs don't sell themselves.  Marketing is a big cost.  Brick and mortar schools don't face direct competition so breaking into the distance field means you have to offer something they can't find 100 other places.

I'm sure the jackasses thought it was all gravy.  They entered the market as the 500th player.  They have to impress people on service or price.  I didn't know they existed.

I'm always amazed how some individual can start up a school from nothing and end up with accreditation and 10,000 students within 10 years.  The problem is simply being blinded by their owned perceived greatness.  Applying the brick and mortar model with the lazy ass professors and bloated administration doesn't fly.

What about the United States open University.  Those assholes lost $20 million.

http://chronicle.com/free/2002/02/2002020501u.htm

Here's a listing of about $1 billion worth of losers.  Too bad the arseholes in charge of the U of Illinois program didn't know how to google.

http://nettskolen.nki.no/in_english/mega...kage6.html

Then there was UK e–University which blew $100 million, spending a big chunk of that on developing computer programs when there are many existing platforms.  Some schools use Moodle which is absolutely free and seems to work well.

http://moodle.org/

George Gollin (George Dana Gollin, George D. Gollin) could not have explianed to them how to do a web search on Google. The only thing he knows how to use is www.samspade.com and public records, and web archive searching for his "connecting the dots" as he boasts so much. His employer must have parental controls in place on his PC.

Oh wait, that can't be the case or he wouldn't have been able to post on pedophile pander's www.degreeinfo.com